Saturday, November 14, 2009

Is There a 'Twilight' Effect in Hollywood?With Catherine Hardwicke receiving more film offers, and similar projects ''The Vampire Diaries'' and ''The Hunger Games'' underway, we ponder the flick's influence on Tinsletown

Judging by the fanfare over the news that Twilight's Catherine Hardwicke will direct another young-adult novel (Gayle Forman's If I Stay, out April 2), you'd think she'd already found her next blockbuster. But Stay, about a comatose teen who mulls whether life is worth living after a car accident, isn't exactly box office bait. No matter. Now, even a loose association with Stephenie Meyer's sensation is enough to ratchet up a project's profile. ''I get a million offers a day, even [for]projects that studios will resurrect if I can make them more like Twilight,'' says Hardwicke, who's also developing James Patterson's best-selling teen series Maximum Ride for Sony. ''But I don't think anything can be like Twilight.''

Hollywood would like to disagree. Besides Hardwicke's projects, Kevin Williamson is producing an adaptation of The Vampire Diaries for The CW, while Lionsgate just scooped up The Hunger Games, a futuristic teen-fiction series that Meyer endorsed on her blog. ''Twilight shows what we've known since Titanic,'' says Games producer Nina Jacobson. ''If you speak to young people in a way that resonates emotionally, they'll show up again and again.'' If none of those works, Twilight fans can turn to the big-screen sequel New Moon, out Nov. 20. ''People always ask me who the next Stephenie Meyer is,'' says literary agent and producer Ellen Goldsmith-Vein. ''The next Stephenie Meyer is Stephenie Meyer.''

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If you haven't read If I Stay by Gayle Foreman, give it a whirl. It is a short but awesome read! I'm hoping this movie is as hip, touching, and cool as the book. I think Hardwick is a great choice to direct the film adaptation of this novel because she has such an edgy, earthy vibe about her. I look forward to April of 2010 to judge the movie adaptation!